The spam on here is getting annoying, and it's not just in this "professional garage" section it's all over the place. The admin are doing a great job by trying to limit the spam, but it's going to start becoming a full-time job on here, that they shouldn't have to do!

We need to help the moderators and admin here with this stuff. I read a tip about installing a security question where you would have to answer a series of common questions to pass through to post each question or reply on the board. It could be as simple as "Name a bus body" and the correct answer could be any bus body (Thomas,bluebird, wayne, superior, etc.), and they would all be right. A spy bot wouldn't know this, but we would.

Another nice practice I've seen is to post a picture of something and ask what it is. For example, picture of a fish, it asks, "Name the object pictured. Four letters, starts with F." Easy for legitimate people, hard for robots!

All of the forums I have managed, have a manual approval of new members. Sometimes it means a slight wait, but if you have a few moderators that get an email when a new member applies, it's usually pretty quick, all things considered.

On our DSM Forum, we event went so far as to require real names, and not accept anonymous email accounts (no hotmail), but that's pretty extereme. (we were fighting people posting stolen parts at the time)

If new member questions asked about the types of buses/egines, and where you work on them, that might be enough to weed them out.

E-mail confirmation works best. You can ban the IP of the spammer and report them to their ISP. I don't want to admin either but a couple trusted people could be good for cutting down double posts, spam and threads in the wrong place. Some sticky post would be great for common solutions we all repeat again and again. i.e. "aux brake lamp on" or "my international makes oil"

“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.” Neil deGrasse Tyson

Ok guys. I have noticed more spam hitting my e-mail box than usual. It would be wise to check NO on allowing members to e-mail you. I have traced some of the IPs and most are from Argentina. They are sending people to fake sites posing as Yahoo, Ebay, Paypal, etc. Always check the header from e-mails to see if it is legit.

Our school district has been targeted by phishers who ask people to "verify their passwords" with official looking emails. Then, when they get one, they use the account to send out massive amoutns of spam, and ISPs block emails from EVERYONE in our domain.

I have been trying to remove it when I see it but I do not look at the forum everyday. I have contacted administration at school bus fleet and they are aware and trying to do what they can. We'll keep at it. Thanks for the tips.

I have been trying to remove it when I see it but I do not look at the forum everyday. I have contacted administration at school bus fleet and they are aware and trying to do what they can. We'll keep at it. Thanks for the tips.

Partsman, perhaps your school should look into using Microsoft for email. Mine used to have their own email server that was an epic failure before sourcing it out to MS. We're a school of 1100 students and maybe 150-ish staff members and the email is provided for free (any educational institution can get it for free) using our domain (so all email addresses are @ our website). No spam, downtime is rare and brief.... It's Office 365 so people can use Word, PowerPoint, etc. within their browsers anywhere, it's available on smartphones, etc. Something that we actually like from MS. Google does the same thing, I forget why we chose MS though.

Although we outsource email, we're keeping data in-house... none of that "cloud" nonsense. We like having full control of the data and the hard drives physically with us and not in some datacenter with everyone else's stuff.

Thanks for your understanding as we work to delete the spam posts. I check the forums Monday through Friday and delete the spam posts as I see them. If you're a regular visitor to the forums and you're interested in helping us to combat the spam, please contact me at [email protected]

Here is a suggestion for the spam problem, on the iATN mechanics forums you have to help mechanics with questions on at least 2 occasions before you can ask for help. They also have an excellent program for downloading wave forms,pictures and screenshots which is easy to use. I realize a lot of our mechanics stumble onto this site and need help now mabe we can find a middle ground.

I don't have any say in how the forum is run, I only try to keep the spam off. That being said, I would be against a forum like you are talking about, Tigger2. There could be some tightening up of the questions to get an account but I don't know if the Snitz Forums allows those changes. I would say, as most thing are these days, the forum will have to be rebuilt or undergo a major change at some point. So that is probably when the spam problem will get much better. I hope Thomasbus24 and I have made a difference since we have been doing this. I have noticed, over the last few days, the pressure from spammers has been higher than normal.

As one of the non-mechanics who uses this forum, I would definitely have to Google answers to any mechanically-inclined CAPTCHA questions. I'm not super active on the forums (and mostly use it to educate myself on what's going on in the world of bus garages), but I do really enjoy using them and find them to be very helpful. So, selfishly, my vote would be against having that kind of system.